The Kwanzaa Con: A Fake Holiday Created by a Rapist and Torturer

Every year I post a piece on the troubled truth about Kwanzaa. This year will be no exception. Note that some of the newspaper articles I quote are several years old and may no longer be online.

Kwanzaa, the purported “African” holiday celebrated only in the United States, is the ultimate politically correct holiday. It is little observed, even by our African American community, of course, but those that do celebrate it are wholly unaware that the faux holiday was created by a man with a very troubled past. For Kwanzaa’s creator, Maulana Karenga, has a violent criminal record, is a racist, and even a rapist.

Several years ago, the Houston Chronicle got in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled “Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday’s creator.” This one, though, was a bit off the usual track of the how-great-is-Kwanzaa theme because this particular piece celebrated the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, instead of merely celebrating the manufactured holiday, Casimir amazingly made a hero of the rapist, race monger and violent thug who created it! To Casimir, Kwanzaa creator “Maulana Karenga” was a hero.

To further the story about how wonderful Karenga was, Casimir also found a gullible parent who, with kid in tow, went to see the great man at a local community center.

Thomasine Johnson needed to get the record straight about Kwanzaa, a cultural holiday steeped in African traditions that celebrates family, ethnic pride and community.

With her 11-year-old grandson in tow, the Missouri City interior designer on Saturday brought her video camera to S.H.A.P.E. community center to hear from Father Kwanzaa “Maulana Karenga” in the flesh.”

But just like the manufactured holiday he invented out of whole cloth, this “Maulana Karenga” is also a false front created out of fluff and nonsense. As it happens his real name is not “Maulana Karenga,” but is instead Ronald McKinley Everett, AKA Maulana Ron Karenga, AKA Maulana Karenga. We’ll soon see that subterfuge, reinvention and smoke-and-mirrors are Karenga’s stock in trade.

In her piece, Casimir gave us her version of the history of this “holiday.” And the artifice has but a short history, at that.

Created in 1966 by Karenga, a professor of black studies at California State University at Long Beach, Kwanzaa was born out of the black freedom movement of the 1960s, when the Watts riots rocked Los Angeles. It starts the day after Christmas and ends on the first day of the new year.

Interestingly, Casimir employed the euphemism “black freedom movement” to describe the ideology of the group that Ronald McKinley Everett “Karenga” belonged to when he created Kwanzaa. In the 60s, Karenga was in an organization called US (as in “us” — blacks — against “them” — whites). US was a black power militant group that he founded, one that frequently clashed in violence with police and even other black power groups. Members of his group even killed two Black Panthers in 1969.

Yes, kindly professor Maulana Karenga, the murder-touting, segregationist, racist. What a role model for the kiddies he is, eh?

Casimir seemed not to understand why people would doubt this man, though.

Still, many people don’t know much about Kwanzaa or the elusive Karenga, who shuns giving interviews to the mainstream press.

Well, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t want to give too many interviews what with his record as a violent felon and sexual criminal. And Karenga has a long criminal record. In 1971, for instance, Everett served time in jail for assault. By then Everett had changed his name to Maulana Ron Karenga and began to affect a pseudo African costume and act the part of a native African — even though he had been born in the USA.

It wasn’t mere assault Karenga was convicted of, either. It was the sexual assault and even torture that he perpetrated against some of his own female followers. At the time, The L.A. Times reported that he placed a hot soldering iron in one woman’s mouth and used a vise to crush another’s toe, of all things.

As writer Lynn Woolley wrote of Professor Karenga:

And so this is Kwanzaa. The militant past of the creator is now ignored in favor of the so-called seven principles of Nguza Saba, principles such as unity, family and self-determination that could have come from Bill Bennett’s Book of Virtues. The word “Kwanzaa” is Swahili, meaning something like “fresh fruits of harvest.”

No one remembers the part about “re-Africanization” or the sevenfold path of blackness that Dr. Karenga once espoused. Hardly anyone remembers the shootings, the beatings, the tortures and the prison terms that were once the center of his life. It’s just not PC to bring that sort of stuff up now that Kwanzaa is commercialized and making big bucks.

But, Casimir offers us Karenga’s prattle anyway, treating it as the advice of a sage:

“As part of the black freedom movement, we were using this to return to our history and culture,” Karenga said.

He spoke to a crowd of about 100 people ” young and old ” at the Third Ward community center, headed by Deloyd Parker, an avid promoter of Kwanzaa’s Afrocentric traditions and beliefs.

“We have to wake up that history, we have to remember ourselves in a more expansive way,” Karenga said. “To liberate ourselves as ghetto dwellers.”

In a day when the black middle class numbers in the millions and when more whites than blacks voted for a black man for president, for “Karenga” to claim that blacks are still relegated to the “ghettos” smacks of race baiting and trying to “keep hope alive” so that he can continue to cause hatred between whites and blacks. And each year the Old Media is all too happy to assist him in his faux “holiday” endeavor.

Happy Kwanzaa, indeed!

But maybe not everyone is fooled by a faux holiday created by a criminal? Last year, for instance, Kalamazoo, Michigan decided to dispense with its public Kwanzaa celebration. In fact, few cities worry over much about this holiday these days, though some still do.

Even some African Americans are not fooled into accepting Kwanzaa. As Jenice Armstrong from Philadelphia wrote in 2010, the “truth is that Kwanzaa has never caught on with the majority of black Americans.”

Of course if it wasn’t for an Old Media establishment that has given Karenga’s criminality a wholesale whitewashing, this faux holiday could never have gained as little traction it has. Put it this way, imagine if famed Ku Klux Klan member David Duke had created a holiday. Do you think the Old Media would have happily sold his creation to a misinformed public without mentioning Duke’s personal history? Not a chance, and rightfully so.

Yeah, not to many people outside of California cops of the 60’s and 70’s know about Ronny’s past antics. Often wondered how many ex-cons are now “professors” in Kalifornia’s institutions of higher “learning”.

John Bear Rambo

Add a K in the place of the usual C and any word becomes instantly ominous to willfully misinformed and otherwise completely ignorant cretins trapped in Cold War delusion.

Also, pertaining your usage of an apostrophe at the end of a decade, you should research the grammatical rules of the language you probably harp about people who don’t look like you abuse and misuse.

Do please inform us of the views of the “…willfully misinformed and otherwise completely ignorant cretins…” since you seem to be uniquely qualified amongst our commentariat in those areas.

jim_m

Kwanzaa was a left wing fad and has already run its race. In a decade we will hear little about it.

Commander_Chico

Unless dolts like Warner make a fuss about it.

John Bear Rambo

“Left wing”….Talk about an obscene generalization. What are you really trying to say, Jimmy-boy?

ackwired

It sounds like a man with a troubling past was able to leave something positive behind. Nice story.

jim_m

Kwanzaa’s creator believed that Christianity was a “white religion” and his aim was a racist effort to lead blacks away from Christianity. He was also a socialist and the values of Kwanzaa revolve around socialism and his concept of racial struggle. In reality it is an ugly holiday founded on hate. It is promoted by the left because it stands in opposition to western values. It really isn’t any more complex than that.

ackwired

The principles of Kwanzaa:

Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves stand up.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and
maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’
problems our problems, and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building
and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their
traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the
way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and
beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in God, our
people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness
and victory of our struggle.

It looks like it promotes cooperative economics rather than socialism. Beyond that, I can’t see that these are in opposition to western values.

It’s pretty harmless, I don’t know why some white folks get so worked up about it.

aebe

A criminal,who should have been given no credence for what was demonstrated to be false,even as kwanzaa was being forced upon America’s black folks and schoolkids.
A criminal,leaving behind,a lie. Yup.That is really nice,isn’t it ?

ackwired

Kwanzaa honors the African=American heritage using the principles, Unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. What is false about this? And what force was ever used to achieve participation? It must not have been very effective force. It is reported that less than 5% of the black population observes Kwanzaa.

The Seven Principles, celebrated individually during the seven days of Kwanzaa, consist, among others, of the principles of Ujima and Ujamaa. Swahili for “Collective Work” and “Responsibility and Cooperative Economics,” respectively, both principles are nothing more than heart-warming euphemisms for his call for a separate, communist black society. The second of the two principles, for example, aims “to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit together from them.”

Karenga’s final principle of Imani, or faith, advises the black community to place faith in their race. Faith in God, however, is noticeably absent from his definition

It also was founded as a call for race war by its creator

The Kwanzaa Information Center characterizes the black struggle in this way: “We lost our land through blood; and we cannot gain it except through blood. We must redeem our lives through the blood. Without the shedding of blood there can be no redemption of this race,”

Many think Kwanzaa is some benign, folksy holiday, but they do so only because they have never bothered to learn what its creator meant and intended.

It does not surprise me that you only get 5% of blacks who are in favor of a race war. Apparently, they have more sense than the average self-loathing leftist.

It does not surprise me that you only get 5% of blacks who are in favor of a race war. Apparently, they have more sense than the average self-loathing leftist.

…that.

ackwired

There is a significant difference between communism and cooperatives. Cooperatives are typically owned by the employees and customers and proceeds go to the owners rather than the state. They have nothing to do with a separate, communist black society. There is some evidence that the cooperative movement is again gaining. I hope that the ignorant will not oppose it as “communist”.

I can find no evidence that the people who honor Kwanzaa are interested in a race war. I think we can relax and not let our fears get the best of us.

jim_m

Karenga is openly a Marxist. He does not deny that. He was associated with the Black Panthers, which in its original form was also Marxist. He fell out with them because they sought a solution within society and he was openly for Black Nationalism and a separate Black state.

You can claim that you don’t see the socialism/Marxism in Kwanzaa. That does not mean that Karenga did not intend it. I would say that given the MSM’s far left slant, that they would never tell you that Kwanzaa was intended to further Karenga’s vision of a racist black state.

This is a man convicted of torturing people not just assault

A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women:

“Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said. They also were hit on the heads with toasters.”

Screw what the media said about Kwanzaa being about community. It comes from the diseased mind of a far left radical and the left is too stupid to realize it.

Think about it. Blacks are 12% of the population. So the % that celebrate Kwanzaa would be less than 0.6%. SO why do we not place an emphasis on celebrating holidays unique to the Buddhists, Mormon Church, or Jehovah’s Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists, all of which have greater representation in the population? Because if we really wanted to celebrate diversity of religious beliefs wouldn’t it make sense to celebrate religious holidays of religions with more people in them?

Oh yeah, because the real reason to celebrate Kwanzaa is to segregate black people. Well, that and Kwanzaa promotes socialism.

Warner, you missed an interesting piece of information that exposes how fake that Kwanzaa is.

Everett decided to use words from the Swahili language to make his pseudo-holiday more appealing to black Americans. There is just one problem. Swahili is spoken in eastern Africa. The ancestors of most black Americans were from western Africa, where Swahili wasn’t spoken.

Brucehenry

Some people are forever outraged about Shit That Doesn’t Matter. And the sentence about David Duke makes this another edition of the Huston Report: News That You Can Imagine Would Have Happened.

JWH

It’s a holiday. People light a few candles, exchange a few gifts, and have some good cheer. Why not just let them enjoy it?

Brucehenry

Three guesses why not.

jim_m

1) it’s not a real holiday any more than Grandmother’s day is.

2) it was founded for the purpose of promoting racial division.

3) while it purports to be from Africa it is unknown there and it is immoral to teach people something that you know is a lie.

Did I get it?

Brucehenry

Oh, yes, jim, those are the three reasons Warner hates Kwanzaa.

914

I don’t like it because they pushed this racist crap on us in Grade school. Even at 6 years old I knew it was a bunch of crap.

MoneyLaunderingNews

st peter was a murderor! is christianity fake? you sound like a fool!

MoneyLaunderingNews

God made a donkey speak. Imagine what HE can do for the jackass that wrote this hateful piece!

Pauline Mendes

As fake as Christianity. Most crimes are committed in the name of religion; mostly Christianity.

You might be able to make a case for your un-supported allegation for the 9th through 14th Centuries. Maybe.

For the 20th Century the religion of blood was Atheism as prescribed by the International Communist Party.

For the 21st Century, the current leader by several orders of magnitude is Mohammadeism, with 22,151 deadly attacks (and counting) since 9/11/2001.

Pauline Mendes

Oh yeah, I guess to you the only travesties in this world and western related huh? What about the killing of natives in the name of God? what about Genocide in the name of God? what about the crusades I the name of God? what about taking people’s lands in the name of God? what about 400 years if slavery in the name of God? What about the fact that the Vatican approved slavery in the name of God? What about the fact the Berlin Conference was approved in the name of God? Muslims kill in the name of Allah, Jews were persecuted because of their beliefs. Colonization of Africa in the name of God, Colonization of South America in the name of God, Colonization of North America in the name of God, Colonization of the Caribbean in the name of God” And on and on and on.

We are not impressed with your handwaving spittle spattered un-supported allegations.

Pauline Mendes

Go find it yourself. It’s there to be found. People like you only see what you want to see want not what needs to be seen. Lets end this right here.

jim_m

The proper way to confront people who will not see the truth is to demonstrate that truth with citations that substantiate your position. You may not convince the person you are responding to but you may convince other readers.

What you have done instead is confess that you cannot support your arguments with anything that will back them up other than your own feelings. Not terribly convincing. (but it isn’t as bad as swearing at people and telling them to stop responding to you)

While you’re on the subject of slavery, why not take a public stand against islam, which is the only religion in the world today that countenances slavery? I think that you should head down to the local mosque and protest. You are so critical of past offenses of religion why not take a stand against a present one? (because you’re just a poseur that’s why)

But while you are so bent on throwing out religion, I suggest that you put your money where your mouth is and disavow everything that is associated with religion. You know, things like university education, which would not exist without its religious beginnings, things like hospitals, things like shelters for the homeless, orphans, and hospice for the sick and dying. Charity for strangers never came from socialist beginnings, it came from religious teaching. And while you blame religion for evils done by secular states in the new world you neglect how it has played a role in raising millions out of poverty. But then I suppose that you really don’t give a damn about raising millions of brown skinned people out of poverty.

Leftists like you like to trash religion for the bad things that have been done in its name but you never are willing to acknowledge what good has been done. So full of hate you are.

Pauline Mendes

Full of hate? Dude just because someone don’t agree with your beliefs that does not make them hateful. I am not hateful but I do understand what religion has done to this world. Everyone one wants their God to be better. You are an extremist yourself because you believe that you are right because of your stance. You don’t have any room for anything else, because you are soooooo convinced that you are right. Leave the name calling out of t buddy.

jim_m

I say that you are full of hate because you come here with a long list of slanders against religion, omitting any sense of balance about its contribution to humanity and society. You also come here supposing that people who disagree with you are racist and that opposition to Kwanzaa is racist, when it is primarily based in opposition to its socialist viewpoint and lack of any real constituency that celebrates it.

But you found it much easier to just spout stereotypes.

Pauline Mendes

I’ve proven my point Jimmy and you missed it. Instead of focusing on the negative we should seek the positive things and that is indeed true. Which is the same with religion and as it shOuld be with Kwanza. The same way I focused on the bad things only with religion is no different from what who’ve done with Kwanza. But you missed that because you’re so convinced that you’re right and I’m wrong. My friend no one is right or wrong. A difference in opinion is not a crime. George Washington was a christian who loved slavery, Thomas Jefferson was a christian and owned slaves.But Abraham Lincoln was also a Christian and was responsible for the freedom of my people. Live and let live Jimmy, life is short.

jim_m

So why do you make up reasons to back kwanzaa, a holiday that no one celebrates, and seek out reasons to defame religion and religious holidays , which people do celebrate? I mean other than the fact that you are an anti-religion bigot, why?

There is a right and a wrong. People do both. It isn’t black and white, but the fact is that simple minds like yours are unable to comprehend that people can be both.

Pauline Mendes

Plus Kwanza simply focuses on 7 principle that every human being should possess. What’s the big deal? Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan were made up as well. Furthermore how is it racist? How many black people celebrate Hanukkah? Is it racist as well then?

You remain long on assertions and allegations, while demonstrating no actual evidence.

jim_m

Perhaps 7 principles that every socialist should possess, but not every person.

The big deal is that while billions (yes that was billions with a “b”) celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan, they do so voluntarily and from a family or religious tradition. Kwanzaa, on the other hand, is being rammed down people’s throats by PC zealots. I have yet to encounter a single black person who celebrates Kwanzaa. The only reason it is recognized at all is because of a burning desire on the left to create a “black” holiday. Don’t ask me why the left deems it necessary to segregate blacks all into one holiday, but then the dems were always big on segregation. They were big on slavery at one time too.

Pauline Mendes

Kwanza continues to grow in influence all you Willie lynch sons of bitches. get red in the face much and explode why don’t you?

jim_m

Now who is full of hate? Who is name calling? Pretty much just you.

Kwanzaa is growing in influence? Not likely. I know more black Jewish people than I do anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa.

You came here spouting anti religious slanders and now you are just swearing at those who disagree with you.

Pauline Mendes

go away jimmy.

jim_m

Been here almost since it was founded. Not likely.

Commander_Chico

yeah Jim’s going to stay.

You’re welcome to stay too, Pauline. We need some chicks here.

You look kind of hot in your picture. I can imagine my fingers tracing down your waist and bundinha.

Quasimodo4

The professor said Kwanzaa was a tradition carried by West African slaves to America. He made one huge error in his fallacy. Kwanzaa is a Shwahili word from East Africa. West Africans do not speak Swahili. The fraudster used the wrong language.